God’s Purpose for the Family

 
“In thee [Abraham] shall all families of the earth be blessed…” (Genesis 12:3).
 “For I have known (chosen, acknowledged) him [Abraham] [as My own] so that
he may teach and command his children and the sons of his house after him to
keep the way of the LORD and to do what is just and righteous, so the LORD
may bring Abraham what He has promised him” (Genesis 18:19 Amp).
“And if you be Christ’s, then are you Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the
promise” (Galatians 3:29).
 
            As people pursuing holiness, living under a covenant of complete
consecration to the will of God and the Lordship of Jesus Christ, everything in
life takes on a purpose. Everything is eternally significant. Absolutely nothing is
done without the fulfillment of God’s purpose and desire being the ultimate
objective. We were created for that reason—to fulfill God’s purpose and thus
glorify His name forever. That is our only reason for being here. There is
nothing in this world more important than loving God and dedicating ourselves
to His cause—no job, no financial opportunity, no educational attainment, no
romantic endeavor, and no social achievement.
This grand, overarching purpose for life also applies to marriage, including the
reason for getting married. Why do people get married in the first place?
Usually, because they love each other. They want to enjoy each other
emotionally and physically. They seek happiness and security. They like the
wonderful feeling of having someone they can call their own for life. Or they
marry for other similar reasons. 
But none of these motivations represent the real purpose for marriage. The
purpose of marriage is not just to be in love and enjoy each other. That’s
Hollywood’s idea; that’s why they stay together only as long as they feel love
and enjoyment with each other. But from a holiness perspective, God has a
greater purpose and plan for marriage, one that every couple professing
holiness should fit themselves into. What is that greater purpose? This is the
question we will discuss in this article.
Some young couples get married and immediately proceed to fill up their lives
with selfish purposes and endeavors. They become a business partnership to
gain as much financial security as possible, helping each other to develop their
individual careers and combining their energies and income to accumulate big
houses, expensive cars, great 401K plans, and other assets. Or they become a
social partnership to help each other achieve their social goals. They become
each other’s emotional “security blanket.” (Of course, God does give you to
one another to provide some emotional security, but by no means does God
ever intend for you to get more security from any other person in the world
than you get from Him. He is to be your ultimate “security blanket,” with or
without a spouse.)
Or they become mostly a physical entity, becoming obsessed with each other
sexually until the newness rubs off and they split up. Some decide that they do
not want to have children because it would interfere with what they want to
do with their lives or with their relationship with each other. Others decide to
socially withdraw from the rest of the world to concentrate only on each other.
Obviously, marriage can have a way of distracting people from the main
purpose of life.
But the ultimate purpose of marriage is spiritual—not physical, emotional, or
social. Each new marriage forms a new spiritual entity or partnership—a family
—that has spiritual responsibilities to God and to society. This is true with or
without children in the family. God has designed the family as the first source
of spiritual training and preparation for life, spiritual inspiration and
motivation, and spiritual productivity for the cause of God. The family is to
serve as the first channel of God’s blessings and revelations, a place where He
can establish a direct contact and relationship with each of the members,
including the children.
In other words, the family is supposed to provide the physical, emotional,
social, economic, and spiritual needs of its members so that they can become
productive and useful for God and His work in the earth. Merely paying the bills
and surviving is not God’s plan for any family. Spending all of its resources and
strength on itself is not God’s plan for any family. Maintaining a relationship—
merely for the sake of having the comfort of a relationship—is not God’s plan
for any family. Just keeping life going is not God’s chief plan for any family.
 
Every Christian Family Has A Special Call From God
Unfortunately, many families get bogged down in these ways, but God has a
higher purpose for each family. It is not merely to have fun and enjoy each
other’s company for a lifetime. His desire is for the family to produce spiritually
and emotionally mature human beings who in turn get the work of God done
in the earth. This is the ultimate reason for getting married. This is the ultimate
reason for forming a family. From a holiness perspective, anything less is
missing the mark.
Every Christian family should realize early after its formation—or even before
—that it has a special calling from God to fulfill the prophecy as children of
Abraham through Christ to “bless all the other families of the earth.” God
promised Abraham, “In thee shall all families of the earth be
blessed…” (Genesis 12:3), a direct prophecy that Abraham’s chief contribution
to the world would come through the Person of Jesus Christ. The Bible clearly
teaches that believers are the children of Abraham today through faith in Jesus
Christ (Romans 2:29; 4:13; Galatians 3:29), so this prophecy and responsibility
to “bless” the world applies to us today.
Christian couples have this calling upon their lives first as individuals but also as
a family unit. The whole family—both parents and all the children God wants
them to produce—must find out and fulfill their specific calling together,
purposefully living every moment of their lives with this calling in mind, always
aware that they have no other reason for their existence.
Thus, in a family professing holiness, both partners must
make God’sprogram their family program and pursue it diligently
and exclusively. Their motto should be, “Ain’t no business but God’s business,”
and they must live their lives accordingly. As the children grow, they are
included in the family ministry and calling, and should remain in that calling
until they receive their own call directly from God. The idea of being outside a
God-given calling, free to concentrate on secular pursuits and ambitions,
should be foreign to a family operating from a holiness perspective.
One Christian leader, Dr. Dave Simmons of the “Dad the Family Shepherd”
seminars, summarizes: “God established the family as His smallest battle
formation in His conflict with Satan.”
Therefore, any battle concerning the family is literally a battle “in the
trenches.” If Satan can get the family to fail in its responsibility to prepare
humans to live in this world and to live for the next world as God intended—if
he can instead get them to produce millions of worldly-thinking, emotionally-
wounded, spiritually ignorant souls that do not love or even know God—then
he will succeed in damaging and possibly destroying every human institution
that depends on the family. He will have won the battle at the grassroots level
(although, of course, he will ultimately lose the overall war). But think how
many souls he will have dragged down to hell with him.
It does not make sense for Jesus Christ to suffer and die on the cross, to save
us from our sins, to provide everything we will ever need for the “more
abundant” life—but leave us Christians unable to avoid having rotten, soul-
damaging families that are plagued with divorce and separation, afflicted with
alienation and unhappiness, incapable of achieving anything for God because
of a worldly mentality and worldly ambitions, and unable to prevent losing
most of our children to the world. Therefore, we must win this “battle of the
trenches.”
According to Dr. Simmons, there are at least four major purposes for the
family, all of which are referred to in principle in Genesis 1:26-28: 
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and
let them rule (‘have dominion’) over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the
sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing
that creeps on the earth.’ And God created man in His own image, in the image
of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed
them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and
subdue it; and rule (‘have dominion’) over the fish of the sea and over the birds
of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”
Thus, these four purposes for the family emerge from this passage: (1) To
Reflect the image of God; (2) To Conduct Government For God; (3) To Produce
and Raise A Godly Heritage; and (4) To Nurture God's People. We will further
discuss these four purposes below.
(1) To Reflect the Image of God (“…in Our image”).
            After God created the universe, the earth, plant life, and all animal life,
He then created a new creation, one different from all the rest in one very
important point. He created human beings. Humans have fleshly bodies like
animals, made from the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:19), but God Himself
breathed the “breath of life” into man’s nostrils and he became a “living soul”
(Genesis 2:7). By this act, God imparted to humans a little piece of Himself,
thereby lifting man from the condition of being a mere, transient animal into
the state of being a permanent, part-physical, part-spiritual creation.
Thus, human beings belong both to the physical or natural realm and the
spiritual or heavenly realm. They possess a soul and a spirit that come directly
from God and that exist, like God, eternally. This spiritual body also feels,
thinks, and relates to the world as God does.  This is what God meant by His
statement, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness” (Genesis 1:26-
27; 5:1).
As a spiritual being, man is thus able to communicate with and relate to God.
In fact, he is required to. In essence, man is like an animal that has been given
the capability to connect to the heavenly realm. But if he does not relate to
God in the spiritual realm, if he lives his life merely in the physical realm, then
he has failed to live up to his full potential with which God created him. He is
then living only as an animal, falling far“short of the glory of God”  (Romans
3:23).
The Psalmist asks the question, “What is man that You are mindful of him, the
son of man that You visit him? For You made him a little lower than the angels,
and You have crowned him with glory and honor. You made him to have
dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his
feet…” (Psalm 8:4-6). Man, because of his physical body, is a “little lower than
the angels,” who are only spiritual. But he is not as low as the animals, which
are only physical. Thus, man is a one-of-a-kind, in-between creature, a sort
of spiritualized animal.
Included in the image of God is the ability to possess the attributes of God. This
includes emotions like love, joy, peace, security, kindness, and other positive,
God-like qualities. It also includes the possession of superior intelligence,
curiosity, complex desires, the need for companionship and relationships, the
need to find meaning in life, to worship something somewhere, etc.
It was God’s intention for these positive attributes to be nurtured and
perpetuated through the relationships and interconnectedness of the human
family. He designed into human beings a need and craving for positive, loving
relationships. We suffer untold damage without these interconnections. God
Himself is a God of love and light, and He wants us to reflect His love and light
in this world. This is especially true now that sin has broken the spiritual
connection man had with God, and the world is now filled with darkness.
The family also reflects the image of God in its structure. Just as the Trinity is
made up of three Persons in One—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—so
marriage as God designed it is three persons in one: God, Who is over the
husband, who is over the wife. The Apostle Paul reviews this set up in 1
Corinthians 11:3: “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is
Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.”
Thus, the idea and practice of starting families without all of the necessary
components is contrary to God’s design for the family to reflect His image. A
proper family is not just a motley group of people who love each other and
decide to live together, as some people define it today. A proper family is not a
couple of men or a couple of women who decide to make themselves into a
“family.”  Nor is it just a male and a female who cohabitate for a while without
the permanent commitment of marriage. A properly-formed family is not just a
woman who chooses to have a baby and raise it on her own. A proper family
consists of three necessary ingredients: a husband, a wife, and God as the
ultimate Head.
We know that unfortunate circumstances arise all the time, often beyond a
person’s control, that prevent the proper formation and functioning of a
family, and in such cases the single parent should learn to lean very heavily on
God and the church family for support. Still, everyone involved, including
society, is greatly damaged when any of these three basic ingredients of a
proper family are missing.
 
(2) To Conduct Government For God (“…rule, have dominion, subdue”).
            Now the purpose of being made in God’s image is so that we can
operate on earth in God’s stead. The second purpose of the family is to
conduct government for God. It is God’s intention for humans to have
dominion over all of the rest of His earthly creation in order to bring everything
into harmony with Him and His will. This concept is repeated throughout the
Bible—in Genesis, in Psalm 8:6 and Hebrews 2:7-8 (“You made him to have
dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his
feet”), and elsewhere.
Because human beings possess the image of God and many of the abilities of
God, they are the only creation on earth capable of having dominion. It was
therefore incumbent upon man to set in order all of God’s creation: to build
government and maintain order, to develop civilization, to organize earthly
efforts, to harness the power and abilities of the rest of creation, etc. The
ultimate object of all of this ruling and having dominion, however, was not to
make man himself into a god, but to maintain the worship, service, and
glorifying of the one true God, the one true Sovereign King, throughout the
whole of creation. (How horribly we have failed!)
In Genesis 2, Adam in the Garden began fulfilling his commission to “have
dominion.” However, it soon became apparent that the tools he had been
given were not adequate. He needed a “helper fitting or suitable for him”
(Genesis 2:18). Thus, woman was created, and the concept of marriage and
family was begun. He needed her, of course, in order fulfill God’s order to “be
fruitful,” but also to provide support, domestication and harnessing of male
aggression, relationship-building skills, and a new perspective in his endeavor
to build civilization.
This tells us that the family as God defined it is essential if human beings
are truly to have dominion over creation. It serves as further proof that every
family has a specific God-given calling and purpose to fulfill. This also tells us
that the family alone must evidently impart some special qualities that enable
people to rise to their full potential, and without which they cannot have
dominion. This is especially true since sin entered the world and everything is
now corrupted from God’s original state.
What exactly are some of those special qualities that are to come through the
family? These qualities include the concepts of love, acceptance of others,
placing a high value on life, self-esteem, security, morality, peace, justice,
mercy, liberty, self-denial for the good of others, and protection of the rights of
the individual. These things are learned best within the structure of a strong
family, which explains why so many of these qualities are missing from our
society today: Our families are very weak.
But most of all, the family is to impart and perpetuate the experiential
knowledge of God. Only by possessing these special qualities are people, and
governments made of people, fit to rule.
Thus, if the family, for any reason, is prevented from producing people who
possess these special qualities, the whole society suffers. The society, the
government, and the average person will be motivated by selfishness, and
selfishness is always self-destructive. History has shown that any society ruled
by selfishness eventually collapses upon itself. Such societies do not contain
the internal motivating forces that enable it to maintain law and order, respect
for others and life in general, self-sacrifice for the good of the whole, and the
morality that prevents it from sowing to the flesh and reaping corruption that
eventually becomes too much for it to deal with.
 
(3) To Produce and Raise A Godly Heritage (“…multiply and fill the earth”).
            One of the most important purposes of the family is to raise a godly
heritage—to fill the earth with God-fearing, morally-mature, emotionally-
sound, Spirit-filled, righteousness-working, God-worshiping young people who,
in turn, will do the same after they become parents.God’s desire is that parents
would concentrate on building character and a godly spirit into their
children. His desire is that His people would extend a godly heritage
throughout the present world and down through the coming generations.
Notice the following scripture passages regarding children:
 “In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed…”(Genesis 12:3).
“Didn’t the Lord make you one with your wife? In body and spirit you are his.
And what does He want? Godly children from your union. So guard yourself;
remain loyal to the wife of your youth.” (Malachi 2:15 New Living Translation).
“Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his
reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the
youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them…”(Psalm 127:3-5).
“I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old: Which we
have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them
from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD,
and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he
established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he
commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children:
That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should
be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: That they might
set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his
commandments…”(Psalm 78:2-7).
“For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off,
even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” (Acts 2:39).
“I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the
house…”(1 Timothy 5:14).
“But women will be saved through childbearing or will be saved by accepting
their roles as mothers [marginal reading],and by continuing to live in faith, love,
holiness, and modesty” (1 Timothy 2:15 NLT).
    
From these passages we get God’s perspective on the family in regards to
children. The first scripture, Genesis 12:3, clearly introduces the concept that
the ultimate purpose of a righteous family is to “bless” all of the other families
in the earth. There is no way that God will be pleased with His “chosen”
families getting bogged down with the mundane tasks of mere survival or
distracted by the temptations of material prosperity or worldly ambition. He
has a grand eternal purpose and a life-giving ministry for every family, because
His intention is that every godly family should in some way “bless” all the other
families of the earth.
Malachi 2:15 (NLT) contains another very interesting concept. It is also a very
challenging concept in our world of today, where marriage and having children
are increasingly disassociated from each other. More and more marriages are
childless for a variety of reasons, and more and more children exist outside of
wedlock. The prophet asks: “Didn’t the Lord make you one with your wife? In
body and spirit you are his. And what does He want? Godly children from your
union.”
A similar reading comes from the Contemporary English Version (CEV):“Didn’t
God create you to become like one person with your wife? And why did he do
this? It was so you would have children, and then lead them to become God’s
people. Don’t ever be unfaithful to your wife.”And many other translations give
exactly the same message.
Here is God’s meaning in plain English: “Your spirit is Mine, and your body is
Mine because I made you. I also created marriage, where you could find love
and happiness and physical pleasure with another human being and still be in
My will. But I’ll let you have the exciting privilege of being one and having sex
with your wife because I want you to have children from your union—for Me.”
Although this does not mean that sex is only for procreation, it clearly reveals
that God is making a deal here: I giveyou the privilege to have and enjoy
sex; you give Me godly children.
In other words, under holiness and the Lordship of Jesus Christ, God Himself
claims to be the ruler over our “reproductive rights and powers.” When we
completely consecrate our lives and everything we are and ever will be to God,
this includes our fertility: the ability to create a new human being. He gives us
the right to use good, sanctified judgment and common sense in the matter,
but He does not give us the right to be selfish.
Nor does He give us the privilege to allow secular humanism and worldly
philosophies to dictate our practices regarding family planning, attitudes
towards abortion, and other issues involving human sexuality and
reproduction. If today’s Christians were to research this matter, they would
probably be surprised to find that “until 1930, Christian churches—without
exception—condemned contraception in the strongest terms. The Protestant
reformers, whom we revere, went as far as to call it ‘murder.’”1
These words are quoted from Presbyterian-turned-Catholic theologian Scott
Hahn in “A Lie in the Language of Love,” a phrase coined by the late Pope John
Paul II. His premise is that sex in marriage is the total gift of self, an oath in
action, an embrace in which a man and a woman hold nothing back from one
another. This rules out the possibility of divorce, adultery, premarital sex—and
artificial contraception.
“For contracepting couples do hold something back, and it's perhaps the single
greatest power two human beings can possess: their fertility, the ability to co-
create with God a new life, body and soul, destined for eternity… [To reflect
God’s] love, [i]t must be faithful, monogamous, indissoluble, and fruitful”2
This view was at one time the overriding consensus in the Christian
community. So obviously, teaching against artificial contraception was not just
a Catholic peculiarity as it is today, but a widespread Christian belief that has
succumbed to humanistic philosophies only in the last few decades.
Another argument for tying the producing of children to marriage is what
could be called a natural argument: Sometimes certain aspects of God’s will
are revealed in and through nature, i.e., by what is natural. For example, it is
natural for males to mate with females. The two are complementary. It
is not natural for males to mate with other males or females with other
females. The equipment simply does not match up quite right. This is why Paul
speaks of homosexuality as being “against nature:”  “For this cause God gave
them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use
into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving
the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men
with men working that which is unseemly…” (Romans 1:26-27). So Mother
Nature herself teaches that homosexuality is against God’s intentions.
Similarly, it is also natural for females to have babies through the process of
mating. Fruitless mating is not natural. Prevention of conception and birth is an
unnatural capability made possible by birth control pills, abortion, and the like.
All of these preventative measures are man-made, and have only become
effective and widespread enough to affect society in the last couple of
generations.
Before the 1960’s, the idea that a woman could prevent herself from ever
having children so that she could concentrate on her career or other pursuits
was hardly realistic. If she got married and became sexually active, inevitably
she was going to conceive and give birth. There was hardly any way to avoid it.
But man has always “sought out many inventions” (Ecclesiastes 7:29) to get
around what God through nature has ordained. The development of the birth
control pill and other effective birth control methods, not to mention the
legalization of abortion, is what has enabled recent generations of women to
have the choice of whether to concentrate on a career or concentrate on a
family. Women now have a choice, but that choice is entirely artificial, not
natural or God-given, and as such, ethically questionable.
Christian couples practicing holiness and complete dedication to God must be
extremely careful about accepting and utilizing choices made by a world that is
constantly bent on avoiding God’s will.
Birth control, if used at all, is not supposed to prevent or eliminate having
children but, at most, to help a couple regulate the timing of their children. Of
course, even the timing of when to have a baby must be prayerfully considered
because what we might consider to be good timing is not always God’s timing.
It is an indisputable fact that having a baby every year is not the healthiest or
wisest choice for either the mother or her babies. So birth control can help
couples regulate thefrequency of births.
But Christian couples should never use it to eliminate births altogether in order
for the wife to dedicate her life to her career or personal development, or
because they just don’t like or want children, or because they want to travel
and enjoy life, or because they think the world is too evil, or because “I’m just
not good at mothering and homemaking,” or because “we just can’t afford it,”
or the like.
If birth control is used, we recommend that natural family planning (e.g.,
fertility awareness methods, rhythm, breastfeeding, abstinence, etc.) be the
preferable method used, as opposed to artificial birth control (e.g., barrier
methods like condoms, caps, and spermicides; abortive methods like IUDs and
Plan B; hormonal manipulators like pills, patches, and injections, some of
which are associated with higher risks of heart attack, stroke, higher blood
pressure, bone density loss, bleeding, and blood clots;3 or surgical methods).
For more information on Natural Family Planning (NFP), do an internet search
on “Natural Family Planning” to find several good sites, e.g., natural birth
control, natural family planning, et.al.
The misdirected use of birth control to completely prevent childbearing is
based on the assumption that the woman’s most valuable and primary
responsibility is to do everything and anything but concentrate on producing
and raising a godly heritage for God. Such an assumption is false. Because
raising a godly heritage is one of the chief purposes of the Christian family,
having children should be viewed, not merely as aprivilege, but as a duty of
Christian parents. All of the scriptures we have read so far indicate that it
pleases God for His children to bear children to raise them for Him. Thus, one
of the primary callings of a Christian wife is to bear and nurture a godly
heritage for the Kingdom of God. Only she can do this.
This doesn’t mean that she cannot be involved in other tasks or endeavors,
simply that her life is to be centered around the care of her family. The
“Virtuous Woman of Proverbs 31” was very involved in many endeavors, even
running a successful business from her home, but it all revolved around the
nurturing of her family. This is actually the most important task in the world,
and every wife and mother should feel proud that she has been chosen to play
such a significant role. It is also essential for her to feel happy and fulfilled in
this role, because the blessings to herself, her husband and children, and
society in general cannot be measured. “Her children rise up and call her
blessed, and her husband praises her” (Proverbs 31:28).
Of course, this teaching is greatly offensive in our world today, even to many
Christian couples. Therefore, submission to the divine will is required here, as
it is in every other area of a life of holiness. That is, the Christian life of
discipleship is filled with many difficult areas that cut across the grain (our
“crosses”), and this is just one of them.
Therefore, Christian couples must deliberately submit to God regarding this
concept: (1) The wife must submit to God to conceive and bear the children;
(2) the husband must submit to God to lead his family and actually give his life
(i.e., his privilege to live selfishly for himself) for his wife and children; and (3)
the couple must submit to God to concentrate on raising their children only for
the Lord. By this we mean raising them to be untainted and unmarred with
secular humanistic worldviews, crippling emotional insecurities, false, non-
eternal values, etc.
Accordingly, the couple must submit to dedicating their lives to literally
pouring themselves into their children: their knowledge of God, their eternal
values, their strength of character, their self-discipline, their social skills—
everything they have and are. Obviously, if the parents do not have these
qualities, then they must submit and bring themselves under the discipline of
the Lord to obtain them. Doing this right is obviously a full time responsibility.
Paul’s statement above to Timothy is that the “younger women should marry,
bear children, and guide the home” [Strong’s Concordance: “be the head of
(i.e., rule) a family”] (1 Tim. 5:14). This verse expresses the Biblical principle to
support our assertion that making a home is thenatural role for women. This is
not merely a social custom for that time and that society: In 1 Timothy 2:15 he
appears to make a connection between a woman “accepting her role as a
mother”(LNT and numerous other translations) and her salvation.
According to New Testament Greek commentator Marvin R. Vincent, the
common explanation is that this phrase is “referring to all Christian mothers,
who will be saved in fulfilling their proper destiny and acquiescing in all the
conditions of a Christian woman’s life…”3Admittedly, this scripture is
somewhat obscure and a little ambiguous: some commentators believe that it
refers to being saved through “the Childbearing,” i.e., through Jesus.
But the principle of women having a natural, God-given homemaking role is
still biblical. And, even if we don’t allow for God at all, mothering and
homemaking is obviously the natural, physiological role given to women by
Mother Nature or evolution, if we wanted to argue from those perspectives. 
Furthermore, for a female to refuse to have children is a form of rejecting her
own identity. A woman’s identity and natural definition of femaleness is
permanently and inherently tied to her ability to conceive, carry, give birth to,
and nurture children. Everything about her— physically, mentally, emotionally,
and socially, from the way she thinks to the way she moves—is a built-in,
inseparable part of her ability to bear children. To refuse to allow this natural
ability to be utilized is thus a negation of her own identity, a rejection of a
dimension of her being that makes her who she is. Having and raising children
fulfills her naturalcalling.
Child bearing and child raising also have the effect of expanding and
enriching both parents. It develops and increases their ability to love. It
provides a transcendent purpose in life as they concentrate on something
beyond their own personal development and as they become responsible for
someone completely dependent on them. And child raising grows and matures
their characters with intangible qualities they can learn only by experiencing
children. A huge realm of the human experience can be tapped into only by
having children. To refuse to allow children into their lives cuts off both
husbands and wives from this invaluable dimension and whole-being growth
process. This is not something they should voluntarily deny themselves from
experiencing.
Of course, our modern society has very successfully re-educated young women
to believe the lies that marriage is unnecessary, children are unnecessary, and
the two—marriage and children—are not necessarily connected at all. And our
society is suffering greatly for this failure to encourage women to concentrate
on nurturing properly-formed families and building a next generation that is
emotionally, spiritually, morally, and socially healthy.
We find several more important concepts expressed in Psalm 127:3-5:“Lo,
children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his
reward.” Notice this verse is not necessarily saying that children are a heritage
or reward we get from God, as it is often understood. Instead, it could be
saying that children are a reward we give to God. God sees our children as the
“heritage” He gets from us.
Although some may not like this metaphor, it is like a master in Bible times
owning a pair of slaves, husband and wife. When his servants had babies, the
babies also belonged to the master, thus increasing his number of servants for
free. The more of these “freebies,” the better. Abraham, with his large
household of hundreds of servants, was just such a master—and so is God. He
is actually looking for us to produce godly offspring for Him. They are His
“reward.” They are His “freebies.” If He owns us—godly servants—He expects
us to have children.
And He expects us to make sure they serve Him. The idea that our children
should be believers is made clear in the passages above, and also in Psalms
78:2-7, Ephesians 6:3, Acts 2:39, 1 Timothy 3:4, 12, and Titus 1:6. Christians,
especially leaders, should have “faithful children,” meaning in the Greek and
most English translations, “children who are believers.”
            If we withhold from having children, we are withholding His reward. If
we raise them for the devil—or allow the various influences and institutions of
the world to raise them for the devil—we allow the devil to steal God’s reward.
We should know that God feels even more cheated than we do: He created us,
He owns us, He loves us, He sacrificed for us, and He gave us the privilege to
reproduce, but the devil, who did not and could not create anything, reaps all
the benefits. If we fully understand these concepts, we will be radical to love,
train, protect, and keep our children on the Lord’s side. And if we have already
lost some of them, we will do our utmost to reclaim them at any cost.
            Thus, Christian couples who voluntarily choose not to have any children
when they are able to have children actually violate the concepts contained
throughout the Bible and even in nature. There is really no way for a couple to
deliberately avoid having children—as many as the Lord wants them to have—
and still claim to be living under the principles of holiness, lordship, and entire
consecration to God. Few of the various reasons given for why they do not
want children are, in the light of these and other passages, valid or legitimate.
Indeed, most such reasons are secular humanistic in nature, i.e., based on a
secular, not a godly, worldview.
A Christian couple should choose not to have any children only in the
extremely rare instance that God Himself reveals to them both that He has
another calling and task for their lives that forbids children. Otherwise, they
are, in essence, taking God’s sexual privileges and pleasures for themselves but
refusing to give Him what He wants out of the agreement: godly children to
increase His influence in the world. They make it a one-sided deal where God
gets short-changed. It should be obvious that there is some selfishness
involved here somewhere.
If God does not bless a couple to be physically able to have normal, healthy
children of their own, then they should prayerfully consider adopting and
raising other people’s children so that God will still receive the reward of godly
young lives. Of course, it could be that God might want just the two of them to
serve Him in some other capacity. But whatever they do, they must find out
God’s will about the matter concerning them.
Another scenario, very common today, is that of grandparents stepping in to
help raise—and rescue—their grandchildren. Whatever the case, it is all in
agreement with this very important purpose of the family: To raise a godly
heritage—to fill the earth with God-fearing, morally-mature, emotionally-
sound, Spirit-filled, righteousness-working, God-worshiping young people who,
in turn, will do the same after they become parents. This is the reward due
God. And, we might add, it is a reward He does not get nearly enough of.
And one other thing: Children are a whole lot of unexpected, life-fulfilling fun!
Having children is one way to share your life, with them and with the world,
distributing your life into several smaller containers who will love you forever.
You will never regret it. Children may be your biggest liabilities, but they are
also your biggest assets. And when properly trained and prepared, they can
bring loads of happiness, love, and pleasure into the family, the church, and
the world. Children can bless the world immensely when they are properly
trained to fulfill their family’s calling.
Just look at the major influence Susannah Wesley had and still has on the
whole world through just two of her nineteen properly trained children—John
and Charles Wesley. Christians can use this tool, just as they use evangelism, to
help change society, all the while receiving lots of love in return. As a pastor
once asked someone, “When was the last time a dollar bill hugged you around
your neck?”
(For more on the topic of children, it would be invaluable to read Chapter
Seven “About Children,” in Lies Women Believe—And the Truth That Sets Them
Free, by Nancy Leigh DeMoss
 
(4) To Nurture God’s People (“And God blessed them…”).
            The fourth critical purpose for the family is to serve as the nurturer of
people. God designed human beings to live and thrive on love. Love is the
power that energizes heaven and earth. Love is the greatest and most
powerful motivator on earth. But it is not the mostprevalent motivator.
Because of sin and selfishness, fear—insecurity, pride, self-seeking, hatred,
lack of self-esteem, and dozens of other forms of fear—is the most prevalent
human motivator. But love shouldbe. God made us dependent on and addicted
to wholesome, positive, and loving relationships and interconnectedness. Our
emotional, mental, social, physical, and spiritual health depends largely on the
health of our relationships.
In all creation, humans appear to be the one creation that cannot thrive
without loving relationships with others. Babies that do not receive love
actually have a higher infant mortality rate. Psychologists have noticed that
many of the toddlers adopted from sub-standard orphanages in Romania and
other Balkan countries have been so neglected and unloved that it appears
that many of them will never be able to sense or receive love again. They have
tuned the world out and no longer respond to other people. Psychologists now
have a name for such a condition: “disaffective syndrome.” Stories have even
been told of three year olds committing suicide! The fact is that we were made
to live on love, and when it is missing or replaced with rejection, the results
can be literally devastating.
            Therefore, one of the most important purposes of the family is to
provide love and nurture to people throughout their lives. But this nurturing is
especially needed when people are in their development stages. God designed
the family is to be a “safe zone,” a place of peace, safety, encouragement,
acceptance, respect, and security. We need this kind of environment because
God did not originally design humans to be able to deal with rejection and
abuse. We were designed to love and to be loved.
Thus, we crave love and acceptance from other people, and when that fails, we
are indelibly negatively affected. This is the very reason God sent Jesus Christ
into the world: to bring us the love and acceptance that He made us crave but
which we will never completely find from any source but Himself. “For God so
loved the world,” John says in the most popular verse in the Bible, “that He
gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish,
but have everlasting life”(John 3:16). This is the good news of the Gospel: He
came to bring us love, and thereby bring us life.
Children victimized by families that are dysfunctional, abusive, neglective,
collapsing, or just unknowledgeable usually spend the rest of their lives
recovering. Depending on just how awful their family conditions may be,
people adapt to and compensate for rejection and absence of love and nurture
in various ways. They may substitute their need for love by seeking and piling
on possessions, money, power, fame, etc. They may compensate by destroying
themselves with negative behavior fueled by low self-esteem, e.g.,
delinquency.
Or they may lose themselves in non-productive romantic relationships, e.g.,
promiscuity, teen pregnancy, cohabitation, serial marriages, etc. They may try
anesthetizing themselves and drowning out their pain with drugs, alcohol, sex,
pleasures, and other addictions. Even at the best, people are affected in subtle
ways that they may never even realize: fears, insecurities, mistrust, low self-
esteem, pessimism, possessiveness, oversensitivity, and other emotional
weaknesses.
Therefore, families must concentrate more on building and nurturing people—
both within and without the family. However, nurturing people is not one of
the top priorities in today’s world, not even in many Christian families. For
some reason, many families seem to aim most of their thoughts and efforts on
materialistic goals, and forget all about nurturing each other. Many parents
seem to focus most of their efforts on their own desires, careers, comfort, and
personal fulfillment, failing to make the nurturing of their children and spouses
their chief duty in life.
Our entire society continues to reap the negative results of such selfish
practices. As is increasingly evident, our failing families appear to be creating
"monsters" who routinely go out and shoot up malls, schools, and theaters.
We are almost no longer shocked by such appalling behaviors. Studies show
that nearly half of young Americans 19 to 25 have a personality disorder or
substance abuse problem that interferes with everyday life (1 in 5 young
Americans has personality disorder). Also this might be of interest: The State of
Mental Health on College Campuses: A Growing Crisis. Some day, our society
will literally be overwhelmed by our maladjusted children, the unfortunate,
innocent victims of our collapsing families.
 
Maintaining the Significance of the Family
            It should now be pretty obvious that the family is no small matter. It is
eternally significant simply because families are the basis for the most
important factor in human life—relationships. The world is only as good as the
people who make up the world. But the people are only as good as the families
from which they come. As Mother Teresa once said, “In the home begins the
disruption of the peace of the world.” Godly families that are spiritually,
emotionally, physically, and socially healthy, produce those kinds of people.
The health of our relationships determines the health of our lives—and the
health of our society and world.
This does not negate the wonderful miracle that God can and does make new
creatures out of whoever comes to Him, no matter how much our families may
have scarred us in the past. It merely acknowledges the fact that most human
beings are marked and scarred for life by their original families—and most
never completely heal. If human beings were only animals, that is, only
physical beings, then it would not matter what kinds of families they came
from.
But they are more than animals, possessing very complex spiritual, moral,
emotional, and social needs that must be fulfilled. If these needs are not
provided, then people become distracted, unproductive, and even destructive
to society. But these needs are all impacted by the family, thus making the
family the most important human institution on earth.
This being the case, the family should have the highest priority in human life.
Anything damaging to the family is ultimately damaging to basic human
life. From a holiness perspective, nothing is more important than the
perpetuation of the knowledge, experience, and service of God from generation
to generation. No human endeavor is more important than the nurturing and
training of human beings to glorify God.
Therefore, everything in life should be viewed from the perspective of the
effect it has on the family. We should spend time, money, and effort training
and preparing people in the skills, abilities, and attitudes that help the family.
We should teach people how to have and maintain healthy human
relationships—within and without the family. We should teach children from
the beginning that their most important function in life will be to prepare
themselves and their families to live productively for God in this world and the
next.
Most people get married; most people form families. So people should be
trained to accept, submit to, and commit to the idea that fulfillment of
their family role is the greatest thing they can do with their lives. If a man rises
to become the President of the United States but fails to make his children
productive for God, then, from a holiness perspective, he has failed in the
greatest area of his life. We cannot emphasize this enough.
We should actually look forward to fulfilling our family roles. But the spirit of
this age does not really value such roles. Instead, we emphasize and place
great value on things—things such as jobs, houses, money, education,
possessions, pleasures, comfort, freedom from negatives, personal fulfillment,
etc. Most people live as if those things have the highest value in the world.
People want nice, pleasurable relationships without having to work to
maintain them. They want low-maintenance marriages—the kind that allows
them to have this great life together with someone else—a “soul mate”—while
remaining mostly self-centered and independent. They want sex without the
monumental consequences of having to raise children. They want more time—
not for family, but to work for more money and things. (Of course, they say
they want more time for family, but their actions speak louder than their
words.) 
They want to receive love from someone without making the commitment to
truly give love to someone. They want God’s blessings without concentrating
on living only for God’s kingdom. They want a safe and secure world without
living by God’s spiritual and moral requirements that produce individual and
social peace. They want a great family without emphasizing and practicing the
values that families consist of: unconditional love for each other, unlimited
self-sacrifice, life-long commitment and fidelity through all the changes of life,
the giving of time and attention to family instead of oneself, the pursuit of
moral and spiritual excellence, and the development of character.
But none of these nice benefits occur accidentally. They are achieved only if
somebody concentrates on them and dedicates their lives to make it happen.
Therefore, our major focus should be on people and relationships, because the
world really consists of people, not things. Things—money, physical
possessions, power, etc.—are merely incidental, never goals within
themselves. A house is significant only because it shelters a family. A job is
significant only because it provides for a family or helps finance the kingdom of
God. Money is not an end in itself, merely a means to an end.
Things are important and valuable only as tools to be used to help and support
people. But our society values and worships material things, as if the things
themselves have some kind of significance of their own. Accordingly, our
society will continue to suffer as we continue to lose the values battle, where
healthy human relationships, marriages, and families are devalued and
sacrificed in our ever-increasing insistence for material prosperity and
fulfillment of personal (selfish) agendas.
 
The Effectiveness of Family Training Programs
            Since we continue to talk about training people for relationships and
marriage, let us give some statistics proving such training actually works. Now
that more and more people, including the government, are realizing that the
collapse of marriage and the family threatens the very survival of society,
multitudes of organizations, research projects, government proposals, laws,
and programs, and even a “family formation movement” have sprung up to
address the issue. Here are some interesting summarizations:
The erosion of marriage has created enormous difficulties for children, parents,
and society as a whole. A majority of children will see their parents divorce or
separate because almost half of all marriages collapse. Only 45% of teenagers
live with their married mother and father.4 Also today in America, one child in
three is born out of wedlock. Compared to children born within marriage,
children born outside of marriage or who suffer through family collapse are
overwhelmingly more likely to live in poverty, depend on welfare, and have
behavior problems. They are also more likely to suffer depression and physical
abuse, to fail in school, abuse drugs, become teen parents, and end up in jail.5
A wide selection of well-respected social studies provide overwhelming
evidence that marriage education and relationship-building programs can
reduce family strife, improve communication, increase parenting skills,
increase family stability, and enhance marital happiness. One analysis involving
several thousand couples enrolled in more than twenty different marriage
enrichment programs found that the average couple, after participating in a
program, was better off than two-thirds of couples that did not participate.6
Separate studies of two other programs, Couple Communication and
Relationship Enrichment, showed that the average couple participating in
either program out performed 83 percent of couples who had not participated
in the program. Dozens of other studies have shown that marriage and family
counseling can significantly reduce family conflict and increase marital
satisfaction. It is only a matter of being willing to concentrate on marriage and
family relationships.7
 
A Concentrated, Collaborative Effort Is Required
            Seeing the eternal significance of what a family is supposed to do, it is
obvious that the utmost cooperation between a man and his wife is required.
It should also be obvious that no commitment-free, cohabiting relationship or
voluntary single parenthood will ever be able to get the job fully done. The
responsibilities are extremely daunting, and almost overwhelming. Too much is
at stake; heaven and hell are involved.
There is absolutely no way either a father or a mother can do it all alone. Each
parent has too many individual responsibilities that only they can fulfill. Each
parent has too many gender-specific influences that only he or she can exert
upon the children. Furthermore, it will be nearly impossible to fulfill all of these
tasks if they cannot concentrate on their individual roles alone. Therefore, a
division of labor into two separate, distinct, equal, but non-interchangeable
gender roles is essential.
The father should then fulfill his traditional role of physically providing for the
family while allowing his wife to concentrate on nurturing and maintaining the
home. Of course, every father should realize that providing financially is not his
only duty. He must provide spiritual and moral leadership. He must provide
emotional support to his wife and children. He establishes the value and
identity of everyone in the home.
Therefore, although he may work outside the home to provide financially, he
must never let his outside work prevent him from doing his in-home duties and
exercising his in-home influences. It is just as important for him as father to be
greatly involved in the life of his family as it is for the mother to be. Any career
or activity that takes him out of the picture should be seriously questioned,
rearranged, or even eliminated if need be.
In addition, a mother will generally not be able to perform all of her spiritual,
emotional, physical, and social duties toward her children and husband if she is
also trying to work outside of the home to provide financially. The only way
she can hold down a full-time outside job is if she neglects many of her inside-
the-home responsibilities.
Parents must realize that there is absolutely no way to ignore or get around
this fact: Something very important will have to be neglected. A mother simply
cannot do it all. If she thinks she has figured out a way to successfully juggle
homemaking and career-building at the same time without suffering any
significant losses, it is only because she does not know how much she is really
responsible for or how much she is neglecting. She obviously does not realize
just how important character-building and full-time nurturing really are.
It is essential for every family to produce well-adjusted, morally upright,
spiritually-attuned young people who possess a biblical worldview. This cannot
be done on a part-time basis, but requires both parents to concentrate on this
one purpose. To pursue multiple purposes, there must be trade-offs. Parents
must prayerfully decide if these trade-offs are really worth it, because, in the
light of eternity, most of them are not.
Distinction should be made between homemaking responsibilities and
housekeeping duties. Homemaking is not just housekeeping. Anybody can do
some housekeeping chores, but it takes a wise, diligent, and intelligent woman
to “make” a home. Homemaking involves nurturing, training, creating a
wholesome environment, simultaneously managing a host of competing but
essential needs, and other duties necessary to maintain a family’s physical,
spiritual, emotional, and social health. Housekeeping involves keeping the
house clean. A wife and mother can hire any domestic to do housekeeping
(and it would be good if some busy mothers did so), but she herself is the only
woman who can “make” the home.
Because she alone “makes” the home, she is therefore utterly indispensable
and irreplaceable. She should be called a “homemaker,” not a “housewife” or a
“housekeeper.” As a homemaker, she should be able to hold her head up high
and confidently, knowing that she has the most important and influential job in
the world. It is a known social fact that the best way to improve the overall life
conditions of children is to educate and improve the training of their mothers
as girls. The old adage, “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules
the world,” is not just some old wives’ tale, but time-tested truth.
In Titus 2:5, the Apostle Paul instructed that wives should be “keepers at
home” (KJV) Some translations say “domesticated,”  “home keepers,” or
“homemakers.” The New Living Translation says, “to take care of their homes.”
These can all be summarized by the phrase, “keepers of the home.” Therefore,
distinction should be made between a “keeper of the home” and a
“keeper at home.” It is possible to be a “keeper of the home” without being
stuck every moment in the house. Paul’s message is not that mothers must
always physically remain in the house, but that they must consistently
maintain their homemaking duties.
In our early child-raising days, when our oldest son was starting first grade, our
congregation started a private Christian school in the church. Philip was the
principal, and Segatha was one of the teachers (pre-kindergarten, first grade,
and other classes from year to year). At that time we had five boys, ranging in
age from 1 to 6 years old. We took the whole family—the whole home—down
to the church and worked for the Lord together! The children were with both
parents most of the day. Eventually, we had two girls, and, for the first few
years, we raised them at the church also. So in essence, Segatha was not a
keeper at home, but she was definitely the keeper of the home.
Thus, this concept of a “keeper of the home” does not rule out situations like
mothers operating businesses from the home, taking the children with them as
they work, or other suitable arrangements. (See Proverbs 31.)  It does not rule
out the possibility of her finding part-time work that pays well and offers a
perfect family-friendly schedule. The key is for her to maintain the ability to
fulfill all of her responsibilities as mother, wife, and nurturer. The problem
arises when her employment or other activities (even ministry) take her away
from the home, make her too tired or distracted, or otherwise prevent her
from fulfilling all of her God-ordained responsibilities toward her family.
 
Should A Mother Work Outside the Home?
Although many Christian parents agree with the concept that mothers should
stay home to care for and nurture their children, many doubt and challenge
this notion.8 Many have unquestioningly swallowed the false assumption the
world makes that “this is the 21st century and we’ve just got to live with the
fact that both parents must work no matter what. The kids will survive. We just
can’t afford not to both work.” Of course the kids will survive. But remember,
just surviving is not the goal of families professing holiness.
The April, 2001 results from a still-ongoing, 15-year, ten-city, federally-financed
study should cause all parents to carefully reevaluate their child-raising
decisions. The study, from the National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development (part of the National Institutes of Health—NIH), tracks from birth
more than 1,364 children from all walks of life in all types and qualities of child
care arrangements. The conclusions were as expected: The more time young
children spend in child care, the more likely they are to display behavior
problems by the time they reach kindergarten.
Specifically, researchers found that children spending more than 30 hours a
week in any child care arrangements away from their mothers were almost
three times as likely to exhibit aggression (hitting, screaming, attention-
getting), disobedience, and defiance as those in day care less than 10 hours a
week. This held true regardless of the size or quality of the day care centers,
gender of the children, or the economic level of the family.
But what was very surprising was that this held true whether the children were
looked after by child-care centers, relatives, nannies, or even the children’s
own fathers! Apparently—and some women’s advocates hate to admit this
fact—it is true that mothers (not “Mr. Moms) are the best caretakers and
trainers of young children.
This NIH study, being ongoing, released its newest findings in March, 2007,
after the children had reached the fifth and sixth grades. Once again, the
results indicated that “the more time that kids spent in day care, the more
likely their sixth-grade teachers were to report problem behaviors such as
getting in fights, being disobedient in school and arguing a lot,” even five years
after the kids’ actual day care experiences.9 And once again the general public
reaction was to downplay and dismiss all negative findings so that America can
continue to ignore how its secular value system is affecting its families. In the
words of child development expert Barbara Bowman, president and co-
founder of Chicago’s Erikson Institute graduate school, “It is interesting, but it
is not a big, big deal.”10
The NIH Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) released
more findings in 2010 when the original children were 15 years old: "Perhaps
the most important findings ofthis report from SECCYD is that the effects of
early child-care quality on cognitive-academic and early child-care hours on
problem behaviors were evident in mid-adolescence, more than a decade after
the children had transitioned from child care to elementary school"
(VandelletalNICHD). In other words, the behavior problems and impulsivity
experienced by children left in day care during their early years persisted
throughout their teen years.
But children are not the only family members affected by the absence of the
wife and mother in the home. Surveys suggest that the health of the husband
is greatly affected by his wife’s employment. University of Chicago sociologist
Ross Stolzenberg discovered that wives working long hours had a substantial
negative effect on their husbands’ health:
“Husbands, beware: Your wife’s job may be dangerous to your health. At least
that’s one way to interpret the results of a new study by University of Chicago
sociologist Ross Stolzenberg. He found that the husbands of women who
worked more than forty hours a week were significantly less healthy than
other married men. At the same time, his research showed that long hours at
work by husbands had no harmful effect on the health of their wives,
employed or not.”11
Stolzenberg explains this phenomenon this way: “Women are trained from
childhood to promote health in their families, to manage health, to be aware
of health symptoms. They are also the ones who are more likely to organize
social contact, and pleasant social contact tends to promote good health
because it is one of the best stress relievers we know.”12
It would be best, he concluded, for everyone to pay more attention to their
own health and well-being, but the fact is, they don’t. All of this makes one
hypothecate: If wives working long hours negatively affects the health of their
husbands, who are deemed to be independent adults, it must surely negatively
affect the health of their children, who are even more dependent on their
mothers.
 
Conditions For Working Outside the Home
Under what conditions might it be acceptable for a mother to work outside the
home? 
(1)   Obviously, if she is a single mother (for any reason), she will have to do the
overwhelming job of both parents, which will probably include providing for
her family financially. One can see immediately why single mothers really need
the prayer and support of their church, family, and friends. Actually, this is a
very ripe field of ministry for the body of Christ: Financially, emotionally, and
socially assisting the single mothers in the church to be able to stay home and
raise their children for the Lord. The mission field is right there among the
single-mom families in the church.
(2)   Another scenario is when a mother’s children are grown or nearly grown
(e.g., 15+ years), and her home-making duties are not as demanding as before.
Even then, however, she should carefully and prayerfully take the following
things under consideration:
(a)  She realizes that her teenagers still need the security and stability of Mom
“being there for them.” They are not completely independent of her
emotionally. Furthermore, they still need supervision: thousands of “latch key”
children get pregnant or get into trouble at home alone while their parents are
at work. The Boys and Girls Clubs organization, located in many cities
throughout the country, ran an ad that stated it succinctly: “When is the most
critical time in a child’s life? …Between the hours of three and eight o’clock
every evening,” i.e., after school.
Borrowing a quote from writer Margaret Heffernan found on a calendar, “Your
children need you more as they grow older, not less. That’s the dirty little
secret of motherhood. When they’re tiny, they need feeding, changing,
dressing, and some fairly undemanding forms of engagement. Many people
can provide this. As they get older, they need moral guidance, health guidance,
social guidance—and help with trigonometry. No one but you can provide
this;”
(b)  Her purpose for working outside the home is not merely to fulfill vain
desires to gain more material stuff (i.e., “stuff that we never could afford”);
(c) Her job is not being used to compensate for any feelings of inadequacy and
insecurity in other areas, because this problem involves spirituality and the
condition of her relationship with God and her husband, i.e., she should not
need a paycheck to feel her self-worth;
(d) Her spiritual, emotional, and social responsibilities to her husband, grown
children, and even grandchildren are still being fulfilled (“teach [the law of the
Lord to] thy sons and thy sons’ sons” (Deuteronomy 4:9); and
(e) She does not have something more eternally significant to do with her time
for the church, for the community, for others that need help, etc. In other
words, she must never forget that people are far more important than more
money for more things. She must never forget her family calling or her
personal ministry, which may not necessarily be finished just because her
children are grown or nearly grown.
(3)   If a married mother does have dependent children, it is almost
always more eternally significant for her to avoid working outside the home in
order to concentrate on her homemaking responsibilities. She is working for
eternity, and there is no substitute for a well-ordered home that fulfills the
spiritual, emotional, and nurturing needs of its members. Such a home,
remember, is “God’s smallest battlefield formation in His conflict with Satan.”
Thus, a mother in this situation should avoid working outside the home at
almost any cost. This even includes many of the times when her husband, for
some reason, is temporarily not working. However, common sense says that if
the family is truly threatened with homelessness and starvation, and their very
survival is at stake, the mother will be forced to do whatever she can to help
provide for the family for that emergency condition. The critical task would be
for her to find a work schedule that is very family-friendly.
But if she can at all avoid working outside the home, even if they have to put
up with several inconveniences and forego many material advantages, it is best
for her to do so. The responsibilities that only she can perform and the love
that only she can provide are eternally weighty enough for the family to suffer
those small material disadvantages. Truly,“better is a little with the fear of the
Lord, than great treasure with trouble. Better is a dinner with herbs
(vegetables) where love is, than a fatted calf with hatred…Better is a dry morsel
with quietness, than a house full of feasting with strife” (Proverbs 15:16-17;
17:1).
 
Conclusion
            Whatever the situation may be, the fact remains that both parents are required to
concentrate on their family responsibilities as their most important duties in life. In order to fulfill
their family’s special calling, nothing in life is more important than the building of strong character,
the development of noble social graces, the fulfillment of all emotional needs, and the successful
spiritual connecting of every young heart to its Maker. All of this must be done within the family, by
parents who concentrate on their individual primary purposes and roles.
Anything less will result in the gravely ill families and societies we have in the world today. Almost
every social institution around us—marriage, family, the schools, the government, business, and
every other entity that has anything to do with human beings—is increasingly dysfunctional,
immoral, and in the throes of collapse, all because, as Mother Teresa said, “In the home begins the
disruption of the peace of the world.”
May God bless every family and every parent with the strength and wisdom to do their part in
building people and a society that glorify Him.